Owners of recently released M1 Macs are set for a pre-Christmas present following the announcement of a new Zoom (opens in new tab) update that will bring native support to Apple Silicon Macs. Previously, M1 users had to make do with Rosetta 2 translation technology in order to meet their video conferencing needs.
From today, a Universal version (opens in new tab) of Zoom is available for download, which will run natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. The new update will also deliver enhanced nonverbal feedback, better cloud contact integration, and several phone-specific features.
Apps that were originally designed for older Intel-powered Macs have performed impressively on new M1 devices but users are likely to have noticed some slowdown or excessive battery usage when employing Rosetta 2. The new Zoom update should improve the app’s performance, although a new installer will have to be downloaded manually first.
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A Zoom Christmas
With Apple moving away from devices powered by Intel processors to its own Apple Silicon chips, there have been concerns about compatibility issues. So far, these have largely proved to be unfounded, with M1 Macs achieving strong performance levels. In fact, according to one user (opens in new tab), the battery life of an M1 device fell by just 17% during a two-and-a-half-hour Zoom call – and that was before native support was announced.
Apple caused quite a stir earlier this year when it confirmed that it would be releasing new devices that were not built using Intel processors. Subsequently, the firm's new chipsets have provided some seriously impressive performance benchmarks (opens in new tab).
With Zoom calls likely to be employed for digital festivities this Christmas, M1 Mac users are likely to welcome the option of running it natively. The video conferencing tool is just the latest application (opens in new tab) to throw its support behind Apple’s new devices.
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Via Engadget (opens in new tab)
